THE PRESIDENCY: Even More Objectionable

As planned by the Democrats who
pushed it through Congress, the $251 million aid-to-depressed-areas
bill was vetoed by the President last week and fell into place as a
plank in the 1960 Democratic campaign platform.

Ike, in sending the bill back to Congress, recalled his veto of a
bloated $389.5 million depressed-areas bill in 1958, saw "in 1960,
another election year," an "even more objectionable" approach to a
long-neglected problem. His chief objection to the openhanded, broadly
defined Democratic bill: "It would make eligible for federal assistance
areas that don't need it."